The US-China Trade War in the Context of Deglobalization and the Re-ideologization of International Relations (Part 1)

Abstract

This paper is devoted to the causes, manifestations, circumstances, results and global consequences of US-China trade war in 2018–2021. Based on the analysis of management decisions, expert assessments, statistics and opinion polls, the author makes judgments and assumptions about the continuity of US policy, provoking and aggravating conflict relations between the two countries, as well as contributing to their penetration into all spheres of politics, economy, culture and even sports. At the same time, consistent and adequate measures on the part of the People’s Republic of China, which have a predominantly defensive orientation, are taken into account. At the same time, the anti-Chinese trade, investment, and technology policy, which was already carried out under Donald Trump in the name of ensuring the national security of the United States, and under Joe Biden actually turned into a hybrid cold war, is interpreted in the context of causal relationships characterizing the crisis of the neoliberal model of capitalism and the intentions of the world elite to restart the Bretton Woods system by switching to “green” energy. The most important resource of the transformation that has begun is the ideology of justifying any sanctions and other strong-willed decisions of the “democratic” Western states led by the United States against the “authoritarian” losers of the energy transition. Consequently, the “trade war” of the USA and China, objectively acting as an instrument of disorganization of the global world and a powerful limiter of globalization based on “market fundamentalism”, becomes the demiurge of the new globalization projected on the platform of “ideological fundamentalism”. In the situation of a multipolar world and the intensified rivalry of nuclear powers, restarting the world economy through a global war seems impossible. On the contrary, the mechanism of collecting a “green” contribution in favor of potential beneficiaries of the new globalization has not yet been tested. Within this perspective, the US-China trade war becomes not only an existential concern of the US and its allies, but also a problem of China’s survival. Obviously, this circumstance explains the emerging rapprochement between the PRC and the Russian Federation in the direction of pooling resources and forming a military-political alliance.